The Look on John McCain's Face Last Night
I posted this on Salon last night, so here goes:
I honestly felt bad for McCain tonight, I felt like he suddenly knew this was out of his control. It felt like McCain was truly sorry for the horrible campaign he'd been running. He's been playing to the baser side of the fringe right winger, the nut. I really felt sad, there was a glimmer of the old John McCain, the guy we used to see, even if it was a farce, but the guy that appeared to stick up for everyone. His campaign has been nothing short of a complete disappointment. He hired Bush's boys and played the game their way and here they are destroying him one more time. It is South Carolina all over again. In his face everything was apparent, they had misread the public terribly, he knew it too. This election the nation isn't prepared to play games, our economy is spiraling downward, quickly, the wars continue and all McCain's campaign offers is another scare tactic, another gimmick. Sen. McCain sold his soul. The look on his face, he was suddenly Gollum, lost without his master, knowing there was something wrong, but his longing for the ring was just to powerful to overcome so he was willing to do what ever it takes. Suddenly tonight he realized it too, he felt it, I saw it on his face. He realized he sold his soul and it is destroying him. The proof was the look on his face. He knew what they'd done was wrong. He'd allowed his campaign to step over the line. If he ever had control of his own campaign, and I am not sure he did. Just like Gollum the power of the Ring was too much. The look on his face tonight said it all. And as he slunk off the stage all you could hear, was Precious, my precious.
I honestly felt bad for McCain tonight, I felt like he suddenly knew this was out of his control. It felt like McCain was truly sorry for the horrible campaign he'd been running. He's been playing to the baser side of the fringe right winger, the nut. I really felt sad, there was a glimmer of the old John McCain, the guy we used to see, even if it was a farce, but the guy that appeared to stick up for everyone. His campaign has been nothing short of a complete disappointment. He hired Bush's boys and played the game their way and here they are destroying him one more time. It is South Carolina all over again. In his face everything was apparent, they had misread the public terribly, he knew it too. This election the nation isn't prepared to play games, our economy is spiraling downward, quickly, the wars continue and all McCain's campaign offers is another scare tactic, another gimmick. Sen. McCain sold his soul. The look on his face, he was suddenly Gollum, lost without his master, knowing there was something wrong, but his longing for the ring was just to powerful to overcome so he was willing to do what ever it takes. Suddenly tonight he realized it too, he felt it, I saw it on his face. He realized he sold his soul and it is destroying him. The proof was the look on his face. He knew what they'd done was wrong. He'd allowed his campaign to step over the line. If he ever had control of his own campaign, and I am not sure he did. Just like Gollum the power of the Ring was too much. The look on his face tonight said it all. And as he slunk off the stage all you could hear, was Precious, my precious.
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Hey T, I think this whole episode has been
troubling to McCain. Go back and look
at his reaction to audience response over the past two
weeks. His conscience finally pushed him to
do something. I respected the fact that he
did correct the Lady yesterday at the rally.
October 11, 2008 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes I did too, ultimately there was so much sadness in his eyes, he knows he lost and he knows why he lost. He has lost control of his campaign. Like I said, the Bushies destroyed him in 2000 in S. Carolina and they did it to him again. How sad. It was the glimmer of the McCain we all used to see. But his quest for the ring has destroyed him. It is very sad indeed.
October 11, 2008 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
The sadness in his eyes doesn't come from his realization of what a scum bag he is. It comes from the realization that his tactic didn't deliver what he wanted, but something quite different. (Why he was surprised about this outcome is beyond me...)
If he was sorry a bit, he would have pulled all the ads that are still running and picture Obama as a scary pal of terrorist.
Yes, he has always been in charge of his own campaing. No matter how much pressure he might have received or not from whomever. He is a free man with a free will.
October 11, 2008 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. If it really bothered him Palin wouldn't be out there still talking the same trash. He is also running those same commercials about Ayers. That being said he did the right thing when that woman called Obama a scary Arab but he also didn't have much choice.
October 12, 2008 3:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think it's just dawning on him that Sweet Sarah would push him onto ground glass with her stilettos if it would put her in a better position. If he hasn't figured that out by now, he's even dumber than we thought.
October 12, 2008 3:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
How many Alaska politicians and their minions have suffered the piercing stab of those stilettos?
She'll no doubt make big bucks on the Evangelical speaking tour, but her future in Alaska politics may have suffered a fatal blow due to her staging to accomodate her new R-VP role..
The whole Palin Gang has stepped on toes and fingers on every rung of her political ladder. They obviously have more passionate adversaries than advocates and their "Former Friends" list seems to be growing every day. If there's one place she's crossed party lines, it's in her ambitious clawing and scratching to the top.
Palin's a real uniter...She's made some serious bitter enemies on both sides of the aisle in Alaska...
October 12, 2008 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly, Sotadeoros. We write ourselves by the decisions we make. We are each a kind of author. Choice is syntax. McCain did it, not Bushies. He did it and the look in his eye is not because he felt any sort of remorse, but solely because he understood that none of his horseshit worked.
October 12, 2008 8:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bullshit.
That look on McCain's face was that of the boy who has been caught throwing stones at his neighbor's windows, and has been chastised and told to go apologize.
McCain/Palin: Rabble Rouse, Rabble Rouse, Rabble Rouse. Tell the Roused Rabble to cool it. Rabble Rouse, Rabble Rouse Rabble Rouse.......
The Secret Service and rational party elders chastised McCain, and made him go through the motions, His body language was that of the sulky boy who did not like what he was being made to do.
McCain/Palin will continue Rabble Rousing, while all you suckers are busy exonerating McCain, and swooning over him for being such an honorable man.
John McCain is considered an honorable man, because John McCain has spent the last thirty years telling us that he is an honorable man. Charles Keating and his first wife know all about his honorable ways.
October 11, 2008 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I completely agree, liam...I used to believe that McCain was an honorable man who got sidetracked, but I no longer believe that. I think he has always had a mean streak. He has created in his mind an honorable person and has tried to sell it to the public, who for a time, bought it. But this McCain, the one we are seeing now is a lot closer to the real deal than the phony we've seen over the years.
If he really meant this back off he's doing verbally, he would be pulling the ads that are doing the same thing...yet, they are still up.
October 11, 2008 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Liam;
"That look on McCain's face was that of the boy who has been caught throwing stones at his neighbor's windows, and has been chastised and told to go apologize.
Close, but I'll go you one better..
McCain looked more like the little boy who just started a fire in the garage, and got caught leaving the burning building with a book of matches in his hand.
Problem is, the building is still burning.
October 12, 2008 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
rare self-reply...
That book of matches includes hotheads such as Palin, Schmidt, Rove, Rush, Hannity et al, the democracy-hating, partisan provocateurs who have hijacked and corrupted McCain's inevitably ill-fated campaign.
Toss in the Evangelical preachers who broke the law of the land to preach politics and you have a very big box of matches for McCain to use to burn our whole process to the ground.
Sometimes I think the Hannity types would prefer to see our nation in the throes of abject economic and cultural failure, rather than give it over to a more progressive collection of managers.
The only America they consider worth defending is the one they control.
October 12, 2008 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am not exonerating McCain. I think the Bushies destroyed him one more time, and he suddenly realized it. He has lost control of his campaign, but he knows now if something happens to Sen. Obama he will be held responsible. I also think maybe he is finished as a Senator and I think he knows that too.
October 11, 2008 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
You have bought into the Myth that John McCain has propogated about himself.
Read the following detailed history of "The Fake Maverick", and you will learn that McCain is complete fraud.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23316912/makebelieve_maverick/print
October 11, 2008 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
edit;
propagated.
October 11, 2008 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, I am saying the opposite. It is irony.
October 11, 2008 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
We had this discussion in my home earlier this week and determined that nothing McCain is saying is new. He wouldn't be held responsible if anything terrible happened to Obama. Nutcases have been gunning for him, literally, since he started campaigning, or at least since the public took notice of his campaign during the primaries.
October 11, 2008 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
John McCain will be held responsible if something happens to Barack Obama or if there is an incident during the campaign. He has stoked the fears among the crazies. One can never predict what a crazy person will do or how they will react. John McCain will be held responsible, he knows it and he is running scared. Did you read his campaigns response to Rep. Lewis, it was over the top and frantic. He is scared, and he ought to be.
October 12, 2008 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Anyway it is called Irony. In that McCain has become Gollum means he was consumed by the very thing he tell us he is not consumed by. Gollum was consumed by wanting, needing the ring, he would do anything for the ring. He couldn't control himself. In John McCain's quest he has done anything and everything to try to be President. Anything, Everything, he is consumed, and the power of his consumption has turned him to almost evil, sympathetic because of who we thought he used to be and repulsive, because this is what he has become. We all wonder if maybe, just maybe he was always this way. He's been consumed with the Presidency since well before 2000, but we didn't know, he was busy forming his plan, forming his character around what the thought people wanted to see, what they wanted him to be. The thing is we all now suspect this was always Sen. McCain, he was always one of them, not one of us. He knows now we see it, and it scared him last night. It was sad, it is hard to see someone destroy themselves, at the same time we cannot look away, he is being destroyed, it is what great Novels are made of. The irony is just to great.
But it is likewise hard to see American's behave in such a way in 2008! It is as appalling. It says terrible things about us! It isn't all of us, of course, but those people in that crowd are unfortunately people we know. It is jarring. The novel of this episode in what will be American History could be great, is there a Robert Penn Warren in the wings? Is Sen. McCain Gollum or is he Willie Stark?
October 11, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Read the Rolling Stone profile on him. I gave you the link. It shows that John McCain was the same as he is now, when he was a mere callow youth, long before he ever ran for any office.
October 11, 2008 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Have you read All the Kings Men? I read the Rolling Stone Article a couple of day ago. It isn't saying anything different than I am saying. The people in Louisiana didn't know Willie Stark either, they just thought they did, like the man he was based on Huey P. Long. Irony. It is incredible, people don't often to see it play out right before their eyes.
October 11, 2008 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you even read what you wrote on your own blog. Here is what you wrote. Go back up top and read it again.
"I honestly felt bad for McCain tonight, I felt like he suddenly
knew this was out of his control. It felt like McCain was truly
sorry for the horrible campaign he'd been running."
That is why I called what you said: Bullshit. It is, so stop all your tap dancing around the issue. You made that statement. You wanted us to see McCain as a truly conflicted person who was sorry for all his Rabble Rousing, even though he picked an air head running mate, just because she would be willing to engage in Rabble Rousing. I guess I should have said he picked an Ayers Head.
I see McCain as an evil Rabble Rouser, and you wanted to feel sorry for him.
October 11, 2008 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't you feel bad when people are melting down in front of you? It's uncomfortable, but I certainly couldn't look away, the ultimate train wreck, wrought with irony.
October 11, 2008 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyway it is called irony...(tmccarthy0)
Well done!
October 12, 2008 8:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
I know a lot of people want to believe in the myth of McCain as an honorable man. He's invested an awful lot in propagating that myth for decades. If he was really so honorable, why would he have marketed it so aggressively?
In any case, we never really know what's in a man's heart, do we? And ultimately, it's up to John and his maker to reconcile that. So long as he doesn't end up in the Oval Office, those who wish to believe that he was corrupted by powers beyond his control are free to do so. I think his honor code was manufactured for personal gain, just as the maverick role was. The man's about personal ambition, as most politicians are, and over several decades sold the image that he believed would attain his goals. Sucks for him that it didn't work out so well.
October 11, 2008 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Check out this great column on the subject, by Gail Collins.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/10/we-wants-it-we-needs-it-must-h.php
October 11, 2008 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't understand why so many people want to sympathize with McCain and make excuses for him, like 'maybe he didn't have control of his own campaign.'
If he couldn't control his own campaign, what does that say about him? It certainly doesn't say he's qualified to be president.
He hired those people to run his campaign knowing full well exactly what they're like, having been subjected to it himself.
He should be hanging his head in shame. He should suspend his campaign in the interest of the public good.
Country first.
October 11, 2008 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Debbie they have fallen in love with the Myth, that McCain created about himself.
Those are the same people who adored John Wayne, and called him a heroic American, even though he just played one in the movies, and actually avoided service in WW2, while many others, such as Jimmy Stewart, did go to war.
John Ford's great movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, exposes how the mythical man becomes the American hero.
Ford had a veteran newspaper character, in the movie, say the following line, which says it all.
"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
October 11, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great line, Liam. That's exactly what the media has been doing with McCain all these years.
October 11, 2008 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's the part of this that is so disgusting. He hired the very people that came up with those disgusting ads about his adopted daughter, to trash Obama about things that are no more true than what they accused him of. You would think someone who had been through something like that would be more sensitive about doing it to someone else. That's how badly he wants to win. He has basically sold his soul to the devil...
October 11, 2008 11:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would say McCain is an honorable man and McCain is a despicable man and under stress the lower part of his nature takes over. This is true of all of us to varying degrees. I have witnessed several times where I felt that McCain was disconnected from his own actions. It is why he can't be confronted with too much media/reality check... I think it puts him into overload trying to keep things in his reality making sense.
I agree that he should suspend his campaign, however I think perhaps he needs to just ride this out so his followers can vote for him and he 'finishes the race'. I do think he really has sunk his own ship here. His followers may become very disillusioned.
October 11, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, Synchro, is he bi-polar with identifiable extremes?
..or is he a certifiable dual personality, The Maverick and The Machine both writhing within the same 72 year old body?
Regardless of the psychological prognosis, either way, McCain's not stable enough to manage the job he is so ambitiously seeking.
And his own inability to "take it all the way"only proves it. aPalin seems to have no problem rousing the rabble and getting an arousal from it herself, but McCain is obviously conflicted between at least two internal characters.
He's stuck between Iraq and ahard place, if he goes after Obama like his numbed-out, violence-prone, vitriolic Evangelical base demands, he loses the more-civil voters in the middle and on the right.
Even Schmidt admits, without the swing voters McCain's political toast...
But if he loses Bush's old base, he's burnt toast.
October 12, 2008 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Totally with liam on this one. The more that comes out about McCain's background, the more he is unequivocally an asshole and a bully. He's probably just pissed off (again) that it's not going his way and that people are telling him that he has to knock it off.
October 11, 2008 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
He is an asshole and a bully. That is why it was effortless for him to get in bed with the Bushie Boys. All this feeling sorry for him because Bush Roved him in 2000 is wasted on this guy. He was in a fight with another bully and he got kicked in the nuts, not like he hadn't done that to someone else a thousand times. He seems to know how to act like a noble person to impress people publicly, and soak up the attention, but he is not noble at heart at all. He is ambitious above all else. He was an early and loud cheerleader for war in Iraq because he thought it played really well for him. His judgement was as bad as Bush. In the name of all the death and suffering and sacrifice and misery in Iraq ...... fuck John McCain.
October 12, 2008 3:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
May I paraphrase?
"He is an asshole and a bully. That is why it was effortless for him to get in bed with...-Cindy-"
I imagine the children of his first wife would have agreed at the time.
This "poor Johnny got caught in his own garage fire" meme ignores the callous personal and politically expedient manuevers McCain has exercised throughout his entire life.
Hiding not too quietly between the lines of his life story, John McCain's innate cruelty and patent callousness reads in bold print for anyone willing to take off the media-contrived blinders.
October 12, 2008 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
I did feel horrible for John McCain and I do think we were seeing his conscience prick himself and I have even heard some say that he could win back some voters with these reprimands. But I don't see it that way at all. I think it looked like he had created this right wing monster and he had lost control of it. It made him look very small and powerless, not presidential at all.
October 11, 2008 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
wow. great argument. you brought me back from feeling sorry for the man
October 11, 2008 6:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, to bolster my argument,even further, take a gander at this. Look at how McCain wrote an apology to Charles Keating, on official stationary, while he was telling the public that he was ashamed of having rigged the Savings and Loan oversight for Keating.
McCain has always been a skunk wearing a smiley face mask.
http://washingtontimes.com/weblogs/trail-times/2008/Oct/09/mccain-and-keating-till-death-do-us-part-1/
October 11, 2008 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't feel sorry for McCain at all but I did feel slightly relieved when I saw him shake his head and say, "no, he's a decent family man." I sensed we were headed towards a lynching of some MSM camera person at one of his town hall/brown shirt meetings. The Republican party is scary. What it does best is go to war, by playing a zero sum game. (You are either with us or against us) These bastards label anyone who doesn’t vote for them "terrorists supporters" as Bush did just before the election in 06. McCain is a complete, albeit reckless political animal- always scheming to get an advantage and publicity. The media is fascinated with his hysterics and why not, the guy is careening every which way. McCain may very well hate the Republican base and completely turn on them if he gets elected and even force Palin to resign...envious that she played such a big role in the process. I would guess she is treated poorly and basically told what to do with little input at all. I think all politicians are consummate Narcissist, but McCain like Bush (like Nixon) seem to be seeking political power to compensate for a sense of inferiority that has dogged them in their lives. It’s not the service of government they are interested in, not at all, but the power and control.
October 12, 2008 5:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
For all of us who thought John McCain was a different kind of politician - now we know. "Disappointment" is an enormous understatement.
October 12, 2008 6:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know what it is about McCain that make some people willing to give him another chance? How many times does it take for some people to wake up?
October 12, 2008 6:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
If McCain is really upset, then let him stand up in front of the American people and apologize for the hate speech coming out of his campaign and condemn the mob-like displays of his audiences forcefully and unambiguously. Let him make a clear statement that Obama is not a terrorist, that his acquaintance with Bill Ayers is meaningless, and that some statements his minister made have nothing to do with Obama's own beliefs. Let him condemn hatred in all its forms--against blacks, against Muslims, against those with different opinions. Let him say clearly that all Americans--regardless of their political opinions, their race, their religion, or their ethnic background--are good Americans.
Until he does that, the guy's just a creep. The same creep who decided to support the confederate flag to try to win an election in 2000. The same creep who helped Charles Keating bilk the taxpayers of millions. The same creep who cheated on and eventually abandoned his crippled wife. The same creep who allegedly called his current wife a "c*nt." The same guy who has stroked the hateful passions of the mob that currently attends his rallies.
The real McCain has stood up. He doesn't deserve sympathy. He deserves universal condemnation.
October 12, 2008 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
From J. R. R. Tolkien's The Two Towers:
'Don't hurt us! Don't let them hurt us, precious! They won't hurt us will they, nice little hobbitses? We didn't mean no harm, but they jumps on us like cats on poor mices, they did, precious. And we're so lonely, gollum. We'll be nice to them, very nice, if they'll be nice to us, won't we, yes, yess.'
October 12, 2008 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is no "old MCain"
Read the Rolling Stone article - I guarantee you'll give up this ridiculous feeling sorry for McCain.
He's always been fucked up to the max. He's a coward, a terrible underachiever with major Daddy Issues - worse than CooCoo Bananas!
McCain has never met a woman he couldn't mistreat. Hell, Commander Coocoo actually likes women. Commander Coocoo is actually not nearly as bad or scary as John fucking McCAin!
Feel sorry for that coward who ran the other way when the USS Forrestal went up in flames? I don't think so.
What is it with Americans - McCain and Powell - not good men.
October 12, 2008 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink